Vulnerable
by Comicbookfan
Summary: Twenty facts and truths about the life and love of one Kaiba Seto.--Warning: Contains mentions of suicide, child abuse, and shonen-ai.--


**Vulnerable**

Summary: Twenty facts about the life of one Kaiba Seto.

Pairings: Euroshipping

* * *

***

Seto is an exceptionally bright boy. This has granted him all sorts of perks in life. It has granted him even more downfalls.

Sometimes, when he was younger, he used to wonder how things could have been if he was just normal.

Now he's too preoccupied with work to think of such silly things.

***

The first time Seto saw Mokuba, he was five years old, standing over the premature baby, next to his father. His father had had a scary broken look on his face.

Cycle of life and death. His mother died, his brother lived.

"He looks like mother," he had said decisively, stroking the infant's hair.

His father had cried.

***

When his father died, Seto was called Ebina Seto, not Kaiba, and he was seven years old.

He didn't cry.

His father had drunk himself into a stupor and walked off of a bridge.

It had been expected.

***

Kaiba is irationally jealous of Motou Yuugi. He tells himself it's because Yuugi took his title as the number one chapion of Duel Monsters in the world.

It's really because Yuugi has this _innocence_ and this _love _that Kaiba has never had.

***

The only reason that Kaiba finally accepts Yuugi and his friends' offer and befriends them, it is because...because...

Because he finally has to accept the fact that Yuugi-tachi are probably the only people who will ever completely accept him.

***

Kaiba holds a grudging respect for Bakura Ryou. Bakura lost the spirit of the ring, his father to work, and his mother and his sister were lost in one fell swoop to a cruel accident.

Bakura has lost almost everything at one point, and is even trying to rebuild his life.

This is because he hasn't killed himself yet.

Kaiba realizes after a while that he has taken it upon himself to assure that he won't.

***

Mokuba has been his tether to the real world for years now.

Kaiba loves his little brother, and even though he never says it, it is painfully obvious.

***

Not many people remember that nehind the cold, stony exterior there is a human being.

A child, at that.

Seto himself isn't quite one of them.

***

On Kaiba's bathroom counter, there are three bottles.

One is a bottle of anti-depressants.

One is of sleeping pills.

One is of painkillers.

They are full. Kaiba had never used them, nor does he remember why he even got them.

He empties them on the counter and just stares at the mass of white and off-white, before he sweeps them off of the counter and throws them away.

He isn't sure why he did that.

Somebody nobody understands Kaiba, least of all himself.

***

There is a long, jagged scar down the wrist of Seto's right arm.

_That is from his lowest moment._

There are thin scars crisscrossing his back, and ugly burn marks too.

_Those are from numerous times when he made Gozaburo mad. It seems to him that he could never please that man._

Kaiba Seto has a reason to wear turtlenecks.

***

Seto listens to music a lot. It beats remembering things he would rather not.

***

Seto was fairly small until he hit thirteen, and then he just shot up. By the time he stops growing, he's almost seven foot.

***

People...respect Kaiba.

People...fear Kaiba.

Hell, some people (_most _people) even hate Kaiba.

It takes a lot to love him.

Thank goodness there are people willing to try.

***

Roland is the one adult Seto trusts.

Roland was his English tutor before he was his right hand man. He was the one tutor who was kind, considerate, funny, and interestin, no matter how closed and cold Seto would be.

He's the only adult discounting his parents that has ever seen Seto cry.

Seto trusts Roland because he knows he can, and also because he just needs somebody to trust.

***

Otogi Ryuuji is perhaps Seto's first close friend, because they are, in a way, compatible.

Kaiba has had to be around Ryuuji, for work.

It is only after Ryuuji starts dropping in on the mansions or at work with no adequate reasons that Kaiba realizes the other boy is lonely and so is he. He pretends Ryuuji's visits are a bother, but doesn't kick him out.

About a month after these visits become regular, that Kaiba realizes he could have kicked Ryuuji out a long time ago.

But hasn't wanted to.

***

Seto sometimes talks to Bakura Ryou.

Bakura goes to a quiet coffee shop that Seto frequents, often on the same days. They sit together and drink coffe and talk about stupid things and make them look intellectual. In a short time, Kaiba's talks with Ryou become his oasis.

A little while after that, he realizes he's in love.

***

Seto doesn't sleep often. He hated the feeling of all of his senses numbing.

He hates feeling vulnerable.

He also hates the nightmares that ttack him whenever he closes his eyes and tries to drift away.

...Or maybe that's fear.

***

Ryou helps Kaiba, saves him from himself.

Ryou gives him somebody to be around, to perhaps even love.

There is something intoxicating about how his brown eyes glitter. Something about the way he smiles.

Just something about him that makes Kaiba's icy exterior melt.

Just a little.

***

Sometimes there are times when Kaiba Seto wants to die so much he can taste it.

But that would be leaving Mokuba and Roland and Ryou behind and if there is one thing he isn't it is selfish.

***

Sometimes Kaiba Seto feels _happy._


End file.
